


A World Unrighteous

by SummerLeighWind



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blackmail, Children, Companion Piece, F/M, Gen, Infidelity, Pre-Canon, Riots, Squibs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 18:46:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1993848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerLeighWind/pseuds/SummerLeighWind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobby Leach, the first Muggle-born Minister of Magic, in 1968 was ousted by Abraxas Malfoy they say...but how? Helena Leach, Nobby Leach's wife, thinks she might know now. She hold's the chard remains of the reason in her hand after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A World Unrighteous

Nobby Leach listened with half-ear as people screamed and yelled outside the Ministry; flinched every time he thought someone had been hit with something more severe than a jelly-leg curse. But as it went on, he brought his pale hands together and told himself it was for the best.  _It's for the best, Ned_ needs  _this..._ eventually though, as all men must be, he was snapped out of his daze. Looking up, he saw the fair-haired devil Abraxas Malfoy enter his office. Unintentionally pouting, the man of nearly fifty demanded in a petulant tone; "What do you want?"

Grinning in that oddly somber, but satisfied way, Malfoy said; "I think you should resign."

Raising an eyebrow, Nobby's acne-scarred face looked all the more garish. "What makes you say that?

"This," the devil-man answered tossing down a folder. Opening it, the Minster felt his heart give an unintentional flutter. They were pictures of a trio of kids, one about twelve with a grin that would put an angel to shame (he had singing voice that would do the same, he'd been trying to convince Anne that they should send Ned to one of those muggle music schools...) and then two other kids, a little girl and boy who were a perfect pair. Their eyes were always on the other and the dusky blond of the girl complimented the deep brown of the boy's in such a way that they seemed to halves of a coin.

Pushing back from his desk, Nobby gave Malfoy a defeated look. "Alright," he said. "You caught me."

"You can keep your job, you know," the fair-haired demon offered. Tempting the Minister.

Suspicious, he ran a hand over his dimpled face and inquired, "how?"

"Easy, tone down the squib rights campaign."

Nobby's eyes went to the picture of the older boy. Ned. His  _son_. "No can do," he replied.

Malfoy's hands came down on the heavy wood of his desk and by all feats, he caused it to shake. "Why?!" He demanded fiercely. "Do you even know what you're doing you little mudblood!? This world isn't for  _them_ , it's for us! Lord, oh lord Leach! Those duds are  _disgraces_!"

"My son is not a disgrace!" The minster hollered standing up to meet Malfoy eye to eye. "Ned is not a disgrace. Not to me. Not to his mother. Not to his brother or sister! We  _love_ him."

The blond pushed back and studied him. "Does your wife know about your sons? Daughter?"

Sticking his hands in his curls, Nobby shook his head. "God I love Helena," he whispered; "She makes me laugh like no one else...but what kind of legacy does a man leave behind without a kid? Not a good one as far as I'm concerned."

Something like sympathy played across the devil's fine features. "I'll make a deal with you Leach," he suggested.

"I'm not making a deal with  _you_ , you fucking demon."

The fair-haired man laughed. "Oh, but you'll  _like_ this one!" And with a sly, sly smile on his lips, Abraxas told him his deal; "I'll quiet the riot if you step down. I will let what you've passed for the squids stay  _and_ your wife will never have to know about your children."

"Never?" Nobby repeated doubtful. "Why?"

Abraxas's finger ran over the faces of Ned, Albert and Lisa; "I'm a father." He said and when he looked up, the minster knew he was telling the truth. "I would not want your son to be burdened by your failings as I do not want mine to suffer from my doings."

Putting out his hand, Nobby leach committed himself to the devil's deal. "I'll resign tomorrow."

"Thank you," Malfoy grinned. "I have the name for the successor I want you to appoint."

"Alright," and with a short bow, the fair-haired demon took his leave. Plopping back into his seat, the muggleborn gazed down on the faces of his children. They were good kids. They thought he was a good man. So did their mother. He didn't...he didn't want them - or  _anyone_ for that matter to think ill of him. Not for his sake, no, but for Helena's.

It wasn't her fault she was barren.

Eyes meandering to his wife's portrait, he opened it up and tucked behind her smiling face a picture of Ned; grinning, pet chicken in hand and of the twins - Lisa and Albert - swinging on Anne's family's farm's tire swing. Taking up the rest, he burned them. No more proof would remain. He didn't even keep wallet pictures of the kids in fear that someone would see them.

But no one would think to look behind the glittering eyes of his wife's portrait...

* * *

Many years later. Years after he was killed during the war, Helena Leach finally returned to her husk of a home and found the picture frame her husband had kept forever and always on his desk. Blinking back tears, she picked up the chard frame and startled as it fell apart in her hands. When it did, two other photos floated to the blackened earth beside her feet.

Curious, the aged woman lifted the burned pictures and saw that they were photographs; one of a boy aged about twelve years with eyes like Nobby and the other was of a little girl and boy about four or five years old, their curls thick and wild just as her husband's had been in his youth. A shaking hand coming to her mouth, Helena felt tears gather in her eyes.

"W-Why...?"

Her husband had been unfaithful. Told her he loved her for years and year and  _years_ , but here in her hands was proof that he hadn't loved her as he said. There had been another woman. One who gave him  _children_. Letting out a heart-wrenching sob, Helena fell back and clutched at her pained heart. What did she do with this? It was too late for questions and she doubted she would find these children now...

In the midst of black and gray, Helena leach wondered who in the end her husband thought of; was it the grinning faces of these youngsters and their mother? Or was it of her?

It made her dead-cold to think it may not have been of her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think with a kudo and/or comment!


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